Vin­ode Mam­chan

As the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) set­tles this week­end for their all im­por­tant meet­ing, one hopes that they will adopt a new gov­er­nance struc­ture, in a move that could re­store con­fi­dence in the re­gion­al ad­min­is­tra­tion. Present­ly there is a need to re­vise the method of ap­point­ing di­rec­tors to move from a ter­ri­to­ry-based ap­proach. Cur­rent­ly each of the six ter­ri­to­ries are re­quired to ap­point two di­rec­tors to the WICB. The ad­min­is­tra­tive blun­ders of the WICB has been well pub­li­cised over the last few years and they have lost a num­ber of ar­bi­tra­tion mat­ters with the West In­dies Play­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (WIPA). There has been a num­ber of pub­lic spats with WIPA and al­so se­nior play­ers, most no­tably Chris Gayle, and this has led to a loss of con­fi­dence by the Caribbean peo­ple and po­ten­tial spon­sors. As the WICB looks to re­gain con­fi­dence and take the game for­ward, they need the full sup­port and con­fi­dence of the oth­er stake­hold­ers in West In­dies crick­et, par­tic­u­lar­ly the re­gion­al gov­ern­ments, the pri­vate sec­tor and the Caribbean peo­ple gen­er­al­ly. The stake­hold­ers have gen­uine con­cerns about the gov­er­nance of WICB and the struc­ture of the board of di­rec­tors. There have been many gov­er­nance re­ports con­duct­ed on the way for­ward for the ad­min­is­tra­tion of crick­et not on­ly in the Caribbean but the world over. The In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil has got­ten the Woolf Re­port, while in Aus­tralia they al­so have a gov­er­nance re­port be­fore Crick­et Aus­tralia.

In the re­gion, the PJ?Pat­ter­son re­port, as well as the Lucky re­port are col­lect­ing dust on the WICB shelves and now the Wilkins re­port is be­fore the board. Many of these re­ports have called for a re­struc­tur­ing of the boards. The Woolf Re­port rec­om­mends a re­struc­tur­ing of the ICC's ex­ec­u­tive board to make it more in­de­pen­dent and less dom­i­nat­ed by the big­ger coun­tries. The re­view looks at crick­et's growth over the past decade and the ef­fect of that growth on the ICC and the var­i­ous mem­ber na­tions, not­ing the per­cep­tion that the big­ger na­tions look af­ter their own in­ter­ests and not those of the game per se. "The ICC re­acts as though it is pri­mar­i­ly a mem­bers club," the re­view notes. "Its in­ter­est in en­hanc­ing the glob­al de­vel­op­ment of the game is sec­ondary." Much of its vi­sion of a re­vamped ICC is aimed at re­dress­ing this im­bal­ance be­tween the crick­et-play­ing na­tions. The most im­por­tant rec­om­men­da­tion con­cerns re­vamp­ing the ICC's ex­ec­u­tive board, its top de­ci­sion-mak­ing body, to re­duce the nu­mer­i­cal strength of the full mem­bers and to off­set their in­flu­ence by bring­ing in in­de­pen­dent di­rec­tors, in keep­ing with best cor­po­rate gov­er­nance prac­tices. The board cur­rent­ly com­pris­es the heads of all full mem­ber na­tions, three rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the as­so­ciates and af­fil­i­ates and the ICC's pres­i­dent, vice-pres­i­dent and chief ex­ec­u­tive. Woolf's plan in­cor­po­rates five in­de­pen­dent di­rec­tors-three from with­in the game and two from out­side to bring in di­ver­si­ty of opin­ion and ex­pe­ri­ence-with vot­ing rights and the ad­di­tion­al stip­u­la­tion that they should not be in a mi­nor­i­ty. It sug­gests that the full mem­ber na­tions even­tu­al­ly have four rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and the as­so­ciates two, with the chair­man, pres­i­dent and chief ex­ec­u­tive mak­ing up the de­sired dozen.

The Wilkins re­port be­fore the WICB calls for a re­duc­tion in the num­ber of ap­point­ed di­rec­tors from 12 to six (one from each ter­ri­to­ry). As a mat­ter of fact, the Wilkins re­port is call­ing for a re­duc­tion of the board to 15, com­pris­ing the pres­i­dent, vice-pres­i­dent, six ter­ri­to­r­i­al board ap­pointees, six elect­ed di­rec­tors (in­de­pen­dents) and the CEO who should be ex of­fi­cio. In or­der to ar­rive at the in­de­pen­dents, a nom­i­na­tions com­mit­tee should be es­tab­lished by the WICB to iden­ti­fy and rec­om­mend per­sons with the ap­pro­pri­ate skills and ex­pe­ri­ence to serve. The nom­i­na­tions com­mit­tee should be com­prised of four per­sons of whom one each should be se­lect­ed by the WICB, Cari­com, CA­IC (rep­re­sent­ing the re­gion­al pri­vate sec­tor) and UWI. The WICB nom­i­nee should chair the com­mit­tee. If this is done it will bring new and ad­di­tion­al ex­per­tise to the di­rec­tion of West In­dies crick­et, al­low greater in­volve­ment of the stake­hold­ers and pro­vide a bet­ter bal­ance of the board of di­rec­tors be­tween di­rec­tors ap­point­ed by ter­ri­to­r­i­al boards and elect­ed di­rec­tors. Let's put coun­try be­fore self and I await to ap­plaud those who have the guts to be known as men who fired them­selves in the best in­ter­est of the sport we love.